Border state mayors call for immigration reform

He also praised Mayor Raul Salinas, the Democratic mayor of Laredo, Texas, who chaired the conference’s task force on immigration reform.

“I think the time is now,” Salinas told POLITICO in an interview earlier this week. “The president has received an impressive mandate in critical states, and Latinos were very crucial…in November. It’s about doing the right thing. We have Latinos who served in the military, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Vietnam and other medals and gotten medals of honor, purple hearts. I think what we’re looking at is the proper path to citizenship. We’re not talking about amnesty.”

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Salinas, who said that “hopefully the next Congress will pass immigration reform,” said some politicians might be reticent to tackle the issue because they are concerned about electoral ramifications of more Hispanic voters.

“I think one of the things that’s unfortunate is, some politicos are afraid of all of these Latinos becoming citizens,” Salinas said. “They are gonna be voting, how are they gonna vote?…I hope that’s not the case, but I think in states like Texas, states like California, Florida, you’re going to see emerging, stronger numbers of Latinos going out to vote if they become citizens. Then I think it might be scary to some political parties.”

But Salinas also said that at the Conference of Mayors, he had spoken with colleagues on both sides of the aisle who backed a comprehensive approach to reform.

“I just chaired a panel of mayors, Republicans and Democrats, who also agree it’s time to pave the way for immigration reform,” he said Thursday, reiterating again that “The time is now.”

Mayor Greg Stanton, the Democratic mayor of Phoenix, echoed his Los Angeles and Laredo counterparts in saying that “the time is now” to take on immigration reform.

“Like Mayor Villaraigosa, I am more confident now than I’ve been in a long time that the time is now,” he told POLITICO. “And this is actually going to occur in our Congress and the right, positive things are going to occur on this issue.”

He cited the “confluence of good policy and good politics” — including an increasing number, he said, of Republicans expressing interest in immigration reform.

“[We] are now at a moment in time when a confluence of good policy and good politics seems to be coming together, Stanton said. He added later, “The politics is coming together because I think, more in a bipartisan way, more and more Republicans are understanding not only the economic benefits of immigration reform but that they understand that demographics is destiny and if they don’t adopt smarter policies and smarter rhetoric, it will ultimately hurt their political opportunities over the long haul.”